-Caveat Lector-
We're All Strict Constructionists, Now!
By Ann Coulter
Human Events
Now that Al Gore�s church-going and Tipper-kissing days are over,
the media have trained their frustration and anger on the Supreme
Court.
The decision in Bush v. Gore "will long be remembered," vowed
the New York Times, "as an election decided by a conservative
Supreme Court in favor of a conservative candidate."
Admittedly, the media�s fascinating new respect for "states
rights" extends only so far as a state kangaroo court attempting
to rewrite the law in order to install Al Gore as President.
Liberals are always huffy when the court fails to discover the
political wish-list of the Democratic Party lurking in the
penumbras of the Constitution. They see the Supreme Court as a
sort of ideological tooth fairy, delivering partisan victories in
the face of their defeats at the polls.
Since the decisions liberals like tend to be judicial fiats
issued by judges who share their political preferences, they
naturally assume that the opinions they don�t like are the result
of other judges� opposing political preferences.
As the ever-hilarious Maureen Dowd described her notion of
Justice Antonin Scalia�s rationale in Bush, "We stopped the
vote-counting because if we did not, Al Gore might have won."
This was almost as hilarious as her racist, pornographic slurs
directed at the only black justice on the court for having the
audacity to disagree with her carefully reasoned judicial
philosophy, which�like the hilarious Ms. Dowd�s political
philosophy�all comes down to her bitterness about not being
invited to her senior prom. We�re all sorry about that too,
Maureen, but we don�t need to be reminded twice weekly.
Nietzschean Vision
Anthony Lewis�who seems to be writing all the op-eds in the New
York Times these days�complained that the court�s ruling in Bush
v. Gore left the "impression that five justices acted as they
did because they cared more about the result�ending the
recount�than they did about the reasoning that would compel it."
The sort of reasoning that really sustains the court�s legitimacy
evidently requires the invention of mystical "penumbras" and
"emanations" that necessitate overturning the state laws of all
50 states by proclaiming a right to abortion.
Indeed, most psychotically, New York Times� legal reporter Linda
Greenhouse explained the importance of the Supreme Court�s vast
reservoir of prestige by citing one of the court�s more brazen
forfeitures of it: Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
On the actual front page of this bizarre sectarian newspaper,
Greenhouse quoted the ponderous droning of the majority opinion
in Casey about the court�s "legitimacy . . . the people�s
acceptance of the judiciary . . . allow people to accept its
decisions . . . the court�s legitimacy . . . sufficiently
plausible to be accepted by the nation," honk, honk, honk.
The first thing that strikes you about the court�s "Nietzschean
vision of us unelected, life-tenured judges leading a Volk"�as
Scalia put it�is that the majority was not stupid enough to
suggest that Roe (or Casey�s re-interpretation of Roe) actually
was a principled legal decision. They�re just saying the court�s
opinions need to create an illusion of principle in order to
hoodwink the American people into thinking the court isn�t
issuing random political fiats. Which, of course, it is.
Most peculiarly, the majority in Casey seems to be under the
misapprehension that the American people were, in fact,
hoodwinked by the opinion in Roe�or, again, as Justice Scalia put
it, that Roe was a "statesmanlike �settlement� of a divisive
issue, a jurisprudential Peace of Westphalia."
In his dissent, Justice Scalia recommended a different path to
preserving the court�s legitimacy: "Instead of engaging in the
hopeless task of predicting public perception�a job not for
lawyers but for political campaign managers�the justices should
do what is legally right." If the justices are not interpreting
"texts and traditions" but making value judgments, he wrote,
"then a free and intelligent people�s attitude towards us can be
expected to be (ought to be) quite different."
But it wasn�t the dissent the New York Times quoted on its front
page as a warning to the court before it ruled in Bush v. Gore.
It was quoting the majority�s own rash admission that the court�s
legitimacy is a game of illusion. And that admission appeared in
the one opinion that surely damaged the court�s much-touted
legitimacy more than any other�an opinion in which the court
obstinately refused to overrule Roe v. Wade.
Not that there haven�t been boatloads of other Supreme Court
decisions that lacked something in the way of a constitutional
foothold. The court has also sustained its famous legitimacy,
for example, by discovering various cockamamie criminal procedure
rules�unmentioned in the actual Constitution.
In 1961, the court put its legitimacy-producing logic on display
by discovering an exclusionary rule overturning the laws of 28
states. (Mapp v. Ohio)
In 1966, the court repealed laws in a 50-state sweep by
discovering that otherwise voluntary criminal confessions had to
be suppressed if not preceded by a formulaic series of warnings.
(Miranda v. Arizona)
Last term�in one of those legitimacy-testing split decisions�the
court struck down a federal law that did not toe the line on
Miranda. As Justice Scalia noted in his angry dissent, a
majority of the justices openly acknowledged that the
Constitution could not be interpreted to require Miranda
warnings, and the original Miranda decision, therefore, was
wrong.
This isn�t just a matter of the court�s clinging to precedent no
matter how obviously wrong it is. Oh, no. The court is
perfectly willing to dump even principled earlier decisions to
please the editorial board of the New York Times.
Thus, in another great legitimacy-promoting opinion, the Supreme
Court overturned a Colorado initiative approved by 57% of the
voters that prohibited the government from granting preferential
treatment to homosexuals.
Not equal treatment, preferential treatment.
Adherence to precedent�which had been so vital to the majority
opinion in Casey�was not so enticing to the majority in Romer
(composed of virtually the same justices). Just ten years
earlier the Supreme Court had upheld a state law criminalizing
homosexuality in Bowers v. Hardwick. Now it was saying that what
the state could make criminal it could not refuse to grant
preferential treatment to.
The constitutional theory for the justices� ruling was based on
the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment�the very same
provision that the media are now denouncing as an illegitimate
holding in Bush v. What�s-His-Name.
As Justice Scalia summarized the holding in Romer: "[T]he
principle underlying the court�s opinion is that one who is
accorded equal treatment under the laws, but cannot as readily as
others obtain preferential treatment under the laws, has been
denied equal protection of the laws."
Justice Scalia continued: "If merely stating this alleged�equal
protection�violation does not suffice to refute it, our
constitutional jurisprudence has achieved terminal silliness."
Back when the Equal Protection Clause was used to invalidate the
results of a voter referendum in Colorado denying special
treatment to homosexuals, the New York Times called it, a
"victory for fairness" and "one of this court�s finer moments."
Taunting the Supreme Court
But when the very same clause was used to strike down a
court-ordered, indiscriminate "recount" of some citizens�
ballots, in some counties, using wildly different standards, the
New York Times shrilly denounced the decision as a blow to "the
public trust and the tradition of fair elections." Most cruelly,
the Times accused the court of lacking "sensitivity."
The Romer case was so well thought out and clearly explained that
the lower federal courts proceeded to ignore it. Acted like it
never happened. Whisked away into the black hole of history.
Treated as a nullity.
In case you have the legal acumen of a Florida Supreme Court
judge, this was an extraordinary development. Lower courts are
not supposed to ignore the opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court.
But just two years after Romer, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals
was faced with a Cincinnati ordinance denying preferential
treatment to homosexuals in language almost identical to that of
the Colorado initiative. The appellate court upheld the
Cincinnati law, claiming it couldn�t make heads or tails of the
Romer opinion. The decision was taunting the Supreme Court over
its stupidity.
Even the U.S. Supreme Court couldn�t bear to repeat the idiocy
of Romer. It declined to review the 6th Circuit�s openly defiant
ruling.
But now liberals are worried that the Supreme Court may have
sustained a blow to its legitimacy? Anthony Lewis gravely
intones that the court is in danger of having the public view its
"aura of reason as an illusion." (That�s the illusion the court
tries to fake in the cases Lewis likes.)
Isn�t it a little late to be worried about the court�s
legitimacy?
The least one can say about the opinion in Bush is that the court
was construing real live constitutional provisions right there in
black and white. There�s the part about presidential electors
being chosen "in such manner as the Legislature thereof may
direct," as well as the part about states not denying citizens
the "Equal Protection of the Laws."
Leaving aside the merits of the Supreme Court opinion in the Bush
case, all the liberal elites are now on the record as venerating
"states rights" and opposing Supreme Court rulings that are not
firmly grounded in the text of the Constitution. It�s been a
long time coming, but at last the nation has reached a bipartisan
consensus for the idea that the Supreme Court is not supposed to
make stuff up.
=================================================================
Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF:
*Michael Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
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